VillaFaninLondon
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Everything posted by VillaFaninLondon
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Yes I do because our current squad will be lucky to finish top 10 and will be nowhere near challenging for Europe.
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God help us if Digne gets injured for any significant amount of time. Meanwhile Hickey who in 3-4 years could take over from Digne is off to Brentford. With preseason just around the corner you do worry if we aren't going to make any more significant signings. Very surprised given what Gerrard said about an exciting summer ahead and also you'd think he'd be more heavily backed given it's his first summer window.
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Totally see where you're coming from and you are definitely looking at it from a 'realist' perspective - of course we may underachieve once again but with today's announcement to increase Villa Park to a 60,000 capacity stadium with world class facilities we have to see some progression on the pitch. Getting back to being the best in the Midlands will be a good start, Wolves have finished in the top 10 three out of four times since promotion, Leicester haven't finished outside the top half for 5 years now, whereas despite lots of investment we still haven't finished in the top half since 2011. It really isn't good enough for a club of our size and despite reservations about the manager I think the absolute minimum next season will be a top half finish and at least to be within a few points of the likes of West Ham if we cannot finish above them.
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Carlton Palmer played 18 times for England, Heskey played 62 games, doesn't really mean that much. CB is also a weak area for England seeing as players like Guehi and Coady are regulars in the squad and Ben Godfrey got a couple of games. I actually think Mings is better than those players and was unfairly dropped from the recent squad, but I don't agree he's one of the best CBs in the league and is probably upgradeable with some clever scouting. He'll always divide opinion for sure.
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We massively underperformed last season if you hadn't noticed, Brighton overperformed, and they have now lost Bissouma and soon to be Cucurella so that's their 2 best players gone. I'm basing this mainly on the strength of our squad compared to the others, we should have finished above Brighton, Palace, Brentford and Newcastle last season, the fact we didn't is completely on us, and I did say that I felt we were towards the lower end of tier 3 and West Ham would be near the upper end of it. But of course other things like ambition/owners come into it, I think as things stand we still have a better team/squad than Newcastle, but they are the richest team in the world so it's quite likely they will add more quality in addition to Botman and Pope. With us I'm not so sure we will unless we sell some players. I do see what you are saying about combining tiers 3 and 4 because the PL is very competitive, but essentially I think we have every reason to expect to finish above those teams in tier 4 looking at our team now and the amount of quality we have in most positions. As for Spurs, you could argue they belong in tier 2 but I think they could do really well next season with Conte, I don't know for sure because they still have some weak players in their first 11 but that front 3 and CM is very, very good and Conte knows how to win. I think they'll be a few points off City and Liverpool but will stay up there for much of the season. Chelsea don't look to me like a team that will challenge for the league next season, their form towards the end of last season was really poor, they no longer have Abramovich, and players like Rudiger and Christensen have left. They still have a gaping hole up front as well seeing as Lukaku flopped.
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Agree with that although I think the way we improve the squad is always to target upgrades to the first 11. If we start bringing on the likes of McGinn and Watkins after 60 mins rather than starting them every week, we'll know we've got a strong squad to compete with the top 7.
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Look, I'm not saying we don't have good players, but we also have several players in our starting 11 that fall short of the consistent quality we need to move rapidly up the table (Watkins and McGinn being two that spring to mind instantly, as well as Mings who makes too many mistakes). As it stands, we will probably improve a bit on last season (not too hard given how much we flopped), maybe by 3 or 4 places higher, but I don't think we'll be close to the top 7 and probably be at least 10 points behind the top 6. Football is a strange game though, West Ham went from finishing 16th to finishing 6th, Villa may surprise me and do really well with Bailey scoring 10+, Watkins and Ings getting 30 goals between them, Buendia and Coutinho getting 10+ assists each, and our new signings Kamara and Carlos being the signings of the season, but the stars would really have to align for all that to happen. The hope is that management realise where our weaknesses are and go and address them before our first game of the season - my concern is there are absolutely no links to any quality players from any decent sources which suggests we are trying to move players our the door before we commit to buying any more players.
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Go on....
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Quoting myself again for you in case you missed it (which I assume you did).
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Fair point. Losing Phillips and then Raphinha likely to follow will be a big blow, although I think their manager can attract good players for them and they'll be better than last season. Depends on how quickly their new signings settle.
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Fair point. Losing Phillips and then Raphinha likely to follow will be a big blow, although I think their manager can attract good players for them and they'll be better than last season. Depends on how quickly their new signings settle.
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Agreed. I'm sure someone in that tier 5 will be the surprise team next season too, maybe Forest, and finish closer to the middle of the table. Maybe I've been harsh on Brighton who would probably feel they belong in tier 3, but I think Bissouma will be a big loss initially for them and think they'll slip 3-4 places. Palace may also feel they belong in tier 3 but not for me, Gallagher has now gone back to Chelsea and despite everyone saying they had a great season they still only finished three points above us and our season was a disaster from start to finish.
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De Ketelaere is in Belgium's squad and they're pretty bloody good if you hadn't noticed. He's an exceptional talent and if Leeds get him then they're another team having a better window than us. Leeds' transfer business has actually impressed me, don't think they'll be anywhere near the relegation zone next season if they get these players in. If we continue to be complacent this window then I'd be quite worried they could finish above us.
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If we break the league down into tiers, with tier 1 being the teams challenging for the title, and tier 5 likely to be near bottom 3, I'd say we're in the middle one: Tier 1 - Man C, Liverpool, Spurs, Tier 2 - Chelsea (maybe tier 1 but new ownership etc I think they'll be fighting for top 4 instead), Man U, Arsenal Tier 3 - West Ham, Newcastle, Villa, Leicester, Wolves Tier 4 - Everton (could be tier 3 but reckon they're in for another tough season), Brighton, Palace, Leeds Tier 5 - Southampton, Brentford(tier 4 if they get Eriksen back), Forest, Fulham, Bournemouth As things stand, I reckon we're more likely to be at the lower end of tier 3. If we want to get to the higher end and challenging to be in tier 2, then we will need to improve on at least two more positions in the first team otherwise somewhere between 9th and 11th is probably our best bet. If we finish below Palace, Brighton or Brentford again then I don't think Gerrard will make it past a second season in all honesty.
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I reckon if we added these players at their peak to the existing squad we'd be top 6 challengers: Yorke Barry Laursen
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Probably does seeing as we're terrible at shifting deadwood and take forever to get them out the door. I mean, Trez still hasn't gone and it's been about a month negotiating.
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You keep saying we've made four signings, we haven't, two of them were loans made permanent, we have only added two new players to the team/squad from the end of last season. Yes getting Coutinho was a bit of a coup but he was already here since January. We all know it was a very disappointing season last season and we made a fast start to the window, signing two players within a week of the season ending (which I was pleasantly surprised by), but in recent weeks there is absolutely nothing coming out about incomings and only that we must move fringe players on. Just some ominous signs for me, and we all know what happened last summer when we desperately needed a new CM and didn't sign one. I still think we need a starting CM and ST at the minimum, McGinn shouldn't be starting every week, Watkins and Ings are not reliable enough, but I'm pretty sure that we won't have resolved this by the time August 6th comes around.
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If we are done, which is possibly quite likely with the exception of maybe a backup left back, then all we can realistically expect next season is top 10. We can probably overtake the likes of Brighton, Palace, Brentford, but I think Newcastle are now bringing in players that are a vast improvement on what they have and if they do add players like Paqueta to Pope and Botman then they will have a better team than us. Arsenal and Spurs finished well ahead of us last season and are showing the sort of ambition that we should be to improve further . Man U are having a nightmare but will most likely get de Jong over the line and one or two others. We might be on a par with Leicester and West Ham next season and be around 9th or 10th but that's the best we can hope for unless things change on the transfer front in the next few weeks. For a side that finished 14th but says it wants to be competing with the top 6/7, we aren't doing anywhere near enough. We need at least another 2 more players for the starting 11 because if we don't then there will be more disappointment again next season I'm sure.
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Beautiful footwork to set up the 2nd goal. He is a genuine talent and it will be a huge shame if he moves on which is looking likely with this contract situation. Good strike from Devine too who is only 17 (youngest player in the U19s squad) and plays for Spurs. Tim has had a very good game at holding midfield, he's even been compared to Franck Kessie!
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He's got some ability (as has any player that plays for Liverpool) but not enough to significantly improve us and move us from midtable wannabes to top 6/7 challengers. His numbers are pretty weak for a supposedly more attack-minded midfielder. And that's without mentioning his injury record or age. He's certainly one of Liverpool's poorer signings of the last few years and for the money spent on him Arsenal mugged off Liverpool big time. Definite Barkley vibes about that one and hope it isn't true.
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Ox would be a pointless signing and is injury prone, getting on, and not actually very good. Hopefully more rubbish talk.
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If Bassey was available for 10-15m then yes, but Rangers are living in cloud cuckoo land and want 25m+ which is ridiculous for a player who's had one good season and not played outside Scotland. For me, I think we're at a stage where we could potentially upgrade Mings given what is currently available on the market and think we should pounce despite what Mings has done for us. Mings' contract is also up in 2024 so we could potentially get some decent dough for him if we cash in now. Just my opinion.
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So quiet at the moment, no wonder people are restless because we still need 2 maybe 3 first team players and there are no links except to Bale which I am expecting and hoping to be complete bull. I see Manure fans planned to stage a protest at the CEO's house yesterday due to lack of transfer activity, they're similar to Everton fans. I think we still need four new signings, with 2 or 3 to go into the first team: CB (sell Hause and maybe even Mings although I know many won't like that) LB CM FW My picks would be any of the following: CB (left footed) - Ake, Botman, Lisandro Martinez (the last 2 linked heavily with Newcastle and Arsenal) LB - Merlin, Gomez or Hickey CM - Gallagher, Auoar, Koopmeiners, Sangare, Majer ST - David, Guedes If the club think we can go into next season with what we currently have, we'll do well to finish top 10 IMO. Those are the type of signings that can push us on to top 7 which is where we need to be next season.
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I don't believe that for a second, would be an awful signing and would be 4th choice CB at best.
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I think you can mix up a possession game with a counter attacking game with that formation, plus get players like Bailey into the team who we invested a lot of money in and we don't want to see it go to waste. In a narrower formation we can't do that. It doesn't matter anyhow as Gerrard seems dead set on the formation he used up in Scotland.
